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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25096558">take a chance</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/1nterlaced/pseuds/1nterlaced'>1nterlaced</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:53:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>856</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25096558</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/1nterlaced/pseuds/1nterlaced</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Rina falls in love.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hamasaki Masahiro/Touin Rina</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>take a chance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>1. Rina's first love is her country. Her pearlbirth is a kingdom-wide event, mermaids from every North Atlantic pod coming together to celebrate their new princess. She looks up at the crowd from inside the giant clam shell she's just been born in, her pearl taking its hundredth first breath along with her.</p><p>The older mermaids smile at her and tell her she looks so different from her predecessor, that the rich green of her hair used to be the color of seafoam, and that the emerald tones of her tail means she will be passionate. Rina smiles, overwhelmed and excited and petrified all at once, and lets the servants lead her to the palace. Her new home, they insist. </p><p>The people around the palace adore her, because she is princess and strong and beautiful, and Rina adores them right back. The kingdom is sturdy, dependable. Rina takes to her duty well, and she hopes, along with the rest of her kingdom, that with their love for each-other, theirs can be a time of peace. </p><p>(It isn't, of course. But Rina swears on her pearl that she'll bring the kingdom back together even if she has to work herself down to the last bone.)</p><p> </p><p>2. The second thing Rina falls in love with is friendship. Rina meets Noel at the Summer Green Festival only a few years after her birth, ecstatic at being able to get to know another princess. Rina considers her carefully. (She's so <em>blue</em>.) Noel is pale, and shy, and her kingdom is far north, where the surface world is entirely ice and still humans find a way to hunt their whales. Rina gets her pain.</p><p>She takes her arm and brings her before the palace, barely eleven years old, and declares to all of the citizens in attendance that Noel is her new best friend. </p><p>Noel becomes a staple in the North Atlantic kingdom after that, and Rina swims to the Arctic so often that Noel's handmaids joke that Rina must be Noel's little sister instead. </p><p>3. Her friendship with Hanon and Lucia is the only natural choice, in the beginning. Aqua Regina needs to be brought back, and she has to be around them because being together is better than their chances apart. </p><p>But she gets to know them and as silly and naïve as they are, they're <em>fun</em>. They get on her nerves sometimes but they make her laugh, and one day, Rina stops by the store and wonders if they would want any taiyaki. </p><p>She wishes love would stop sneaking up on her. </p><p>4. The surface is a harsh place. Every time Rina finds something she likes about it, something else reminds her of everything it isn't.</p><p>It happened with the seafood that she tried at that restaurant with Hanon, that was good but not as good as the food back home, and now it was happening with this boy. Kaito is playful, and brave, and unafraid to tell the truth, but there's one thing Kaito most definitely is <em>not</em>, and that's hers.</p><p>Lucia has told her the story a million times, of meeting a boy and saving his life by giving him her pearl. He was the reason she had come to the surface. Rina thinks it might be fate. </p><p>Hanon and Lucia's constant talk about boys and love above the surface have officially gotten to her head and now she's let herself slip and fall in love. She doesn't dare admit it to anyone because she's a mermaid, and worse, one with a duty and a kingdom to protect. </p><p>Rina cries about it, when the moon is full and her heart is weak, because Aqua Regina gifted (cursed) them with hearts that love so fully and totally, but she would rather let herself cry than hurt Lucia. Rina wipes the tears from her face, and she knows she will choose Lucia's happiness over her own every time.  <br/>
 <br/>
5. Masahiro is a surprise to no one but her. Hanon thinks it's about time, because they've defeated Gaito and she'd only sworn off romance until they had. Lucia's been pushing her to meet with him because Rina hasn't shown any interest in boys above the surface, Lucia says, and her cheeks look like snapper when she talks about him. She resents that, of course, but she still meets up with him. </p><p>He says he wants to get to know her. She wants to let him.</p><p>Rina doesn't think about how they still have to defeat Mikeru, or how she'll have to return to the sea, because she honestly doesn't intend to fall in love with him. (She realizes later that no one ever really does.) He says things that surprise her, and they have the same interest in sports, and when they spend time together, they always laugh. Hanon and Lucia want to say that she's in love, but she won't let them, so they say she might like someone. They say that someone definitely likes her back. </p><p>Masahiro asks her if she'd like to go out with him, and Rina doesn't care for lying. So she says yes. </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thank you for reading!!! rinas my favorite character so this was really fun! &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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